Apple Beats Out Google for Most Valuable Brand

Apple was declared the most valuable brand in the world on Sunday, taking the title away from Internet search giant Google. Apple earned the title in the 2011 BrandZ study by Millward Brown Optimor, and marks the first time in four years where Google hasn’t been ranked in the list’s top position.

BrandZ: Apple is the most valuable brand

The BrandZ lists ranks companies annually based on what the research firm calls “economic and competitive dynamics that influence value fluctuations.” According to the organization, its BrandZ report offers “the most comprehensive annual ranking of brand value, and focuses on consumer-facing brands, rather than corporate brands.”

Despite Google’s drop to the second most valuable company, it’s a company that’s still worth watching. “Google is still pretty hot,” Millard Brown CEO Eileen Campbell toldAdvertising Age. “It remains one of the most-desirable and trusted brands we track.”

Apple also climbed several spots on the Fortune 500 list. The Mac, iPhone and iPad maker is now ranked 35, coming in ahead of companies like Microsoft, Dell and Amazon.

“Doesn?t Millward Brown Optimor know about the ?Walled Garden?, the ?Verizon Unicorn?, and the ?Declining and Mostly Irrelevant iPad??!?!?”

Indeed! How could MBO have fallen so badly into the notorious SJ Reality Distortion Field and gotten so badly transmogrified into fanbois?

Is there perhaps some special hidden mechanism for amplification of this entrancement field that might actually be operating in iPads, which MBO staffers might have gotten exposed to when iPads began proliferating there in their offices (as they seem to be doing practically everywhere)? Now maybe THAT’S what the Senate should be investigating!!!!